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Herman Scharmann, Journey to California
Overland journey of the Sharmann family from New York to California
Description
The California gold rush brought thousands of immigrants to the new territory, including a family of German immigrants. Another in a series of narratives, provided by the Library of Congress, this is the story of that German family's journey from New York to the new territory by wagon in 1849. It is a sobering counterpoint to the gold-fever enthusiasm characteristic of 1850's California. Intended to aid researchers who wish to understand the large context in which ancestors lived, this father's narrative recollects the death, deprivation, and exploitation many settlers faced after arriving on the west coast.
Extended Description
Herman Scharmann left Germany as head of a company of gold-seekers bound for California in 1849. Scharmann's overland journey to California (1918) describes his family's journey from New York to their wagon train in Independence, Missouri, and the trip across the Plains via Fort Kearny and Fort Laramie. When his wife and daughter die shortly after reaching California, Scharmann and two sons push ahead to the gold fields at Feather River and Middle Fork, and the American River and Negro Bar. He offers a brutal picture of the exploitation of emigrant parties and of the drudgery of prospecting and of towns like Marysville, Sacramento, and San Francisco, 1849-1851.
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Jacob Harlan, Wagon Trip to California, 1846 Narrative of Jacob Wright's journey to California by wagon in 1846
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Benjamin F. Taylor, Trip to San Francisco, 1870s Narrative of a freelance writer's journey to California from Chicago in th 1870s
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Friedrich W. C. Gerstacker, Travels in America Narrative of a German-American's journey to California in the middle of the nineteenth century
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Eliza and James Gregson, Life in California, 1840s Narrative of the journeys of an English immigrant couple to California in 1845
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Samuel Upham, Voyage to California, 1848 Narrative of an East Coast clerk's journey to California in 1848
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James Abbey, A Trip Across the Plains, 1850 Narrative of a journey from Indiana to California in 1850
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California Narratives: The Expedition of the Donner Party An account of the Donner Party's journey to California
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Around the Horn in '49; Journal of the Hartford Union Mining and Trading Company An account of a ship's journey to California.
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Leonard Kip, Gold Mine Sketches Observations of a young New York lawyer turned prospector in 1849
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George W. Bryan, Recollections of a California Pioneer The long progress of one pioneer family
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